Computer Graphics with Photoshop - Animation timelines

Author

Animation timelines

ronviers@gmail.com

2007-02-13, 6:15 pm

Animation timelines

Hi,
I have been working on animating effects for a project that involves:
Incremental changes of angle on two Style effects - times two for CW/
CCW.
Incremental changes of opacity on one style effect.
Changes of layer visibility for four effects - two rotation and two
scale.
Concurrent layer visibility changes for two secondary effects.

None of these things would be a problem individually or even together
if they did not need to be coordinated. The problem is that the
maximums and minimums of some of the effects need to occur at the
certain points in relation to the states of the other effects. I am
working on a spreadsheet where I can give the initial conditions of
each of the effects and have it calculate the states of the each
effect so it can be used in ImageReady as a kind of fill in the blank
for the Animation tool. The problem is that it is unwieldy and as hard
as I try I have not been able to make it transferable to other
animation projects - it's useless for anything but this useless
project. My question is, are there special programs dedicated to
coordinated timelines that can be used for this kind of thing?
Something free would be nice, I checked Tucows (the only shareware
site I know of) but did not find anything.

Thanks,
Ron

2007-02-13, 6:15 pm

ronviers@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> Animation timelines
>
> Hi,
> I have been working on animating effects for a project that involves:
> Incremental changes of angle on two Style effects - times two for CW/
> CCW.
> Incremental changes of opacity on one style effect.
> Changes of layer visibility for four effects - two rotation and two
> scale.
> Concurrent layer visibility changes for two secondary effects.
> [...]

First, I'm impressed by your tenacity and resourcefulness.

However, the tools you want are not in CS or Imageready. Flash is the
tool I would recommend. It is programmable. It can work with table data
and algorithms. Even Javascript with animation would work better.

ronviers@gmail.com

2007-02-13, 6:15 pm

On Feb 13, 9:04 am, JJ <j...@nowhere.net> wrote:

> However, the tools you want are not in CS or Imageready. Flash is the
> tool I would recommend. It is programmable. It can work with table data
> and algorithms. Even Javascript with animation would work better.

Hi JJ,
Thanks for the info. Flash looks expensive though. Do you think I
could get an old version from Ebay that would work just as well? If so
how far back in version could I safely go back so it would still have
a PC version and do the timeline stuff?
I am going to have to look in to Javascript. I do not know what it is.
Are you saying that it could do the timelines too, rather than Flash?

Thanks,
Ron

jerryb

2007-02-13, 10:14 pm

hi,
First I am not sure if I understand what your looking for so keep that
in mind...

next other file library sites you can check is download.com which is
very good I generally find more things on it than tucows.. although
both are good.. might try zdnet.com thier file libraries....

for free programs... mmmm... I don’t know , I don’t recall any free
programs that will do all of that...

now anothe thing i don’t know is what the finsih format needs to be ?
a animated girf or flash or a mpg!!! makes a difference on some
answers..

now flash i think can do that... also certain presentation type
programs will maybe do that.. powerpoint come to mind but there othere
that a lot cheaper and good....

animated gif programs.... the good ones can do that ulead animated
crator you can but there a leqrning curve... i haven’t master it
yet...

Now my movie/slide show program ulead vs9, ... i can do that i can
bring various animation (gif or flash) and special efffects on top
(overlays) of my various frames at different time, then export to a
mulitmedia format like mpg or avi , etc...

but i am thinking that flash is maybe your best choice...

"ronviers" wrote:
>Animation timelines
>
>Hi,
>I have been working on animating effects for a project that involves:
>Incremental changes of angle on two Style effects - times two for CW/
>CCW.
>Incremental changes of opacity on one style effect.
>Changes of layer visibility for four effects - two rotation and two
>scale.
>Concurrent layer visibility changes for two secondary effects.
>
>None of these things would be a problem individually or even together
>if they did not need to be coordinated. The problem is that the
>maximums and minimums of some of the effects need to occur at the
>certain points in relation to the states of the other effects. I am
>working on a spreadsheet where I can give the initial conditions of
>each of the effects and have it calculate the states of the each
>effect so it can be used in ImageReady as a kind of fill in the blank
>for the Animation tool. The problem is that it is unwieldy and as
hard
>as I try I have not been able to make it transferable to other
>animation projects - it’s useless for anything but this useless
>project. My question is, are there special programs dedicated to
>coordinated timelines that can be used for this kind of thing?
>Something free would be nice, I checked Tucows (the only shareware
>site I know of) but did not find anything.
>
>Thanks,
>Ron

ronviers@gmail.com

2007-02-14, 3:14 am

On Feb 13, 7:26 pm, jerryb <n...@000.com> wrote:

> next other file library sites you can check is download.com which is
> very good I generally find more things on it than tucows.. although
> both are good.. might try zdnet.com thier file libraries....

I will check them out, thanks.

> now anothe thing i don't know is what the finsih format needs to be ?
> a animated girf or flash or a mpg!!! makes a difference on some
> answers.

I don't know anything about formats yet. I am hoping that as long as
keep the quality high during development I can keep pushing the output
questions out - I have no doubt that you are correct about it making a
difference but this is a mock project anyway.

> now flash i think can do that... also certain presentation type
> programs will maybe do that.. powerpoint come to mind but there othere
> that a lot cheaper and good....

Power Point? I have that! I have never installed it, or even opened a
Power Point document. I will look into it. Micro$ucks may just ship a
viewer with Office so I may not have what you are talking about but I
will keep my fingers crossed.

> animated gif programs.... the good ones can do that ulead animated
> crator you can but there a leqrning curve... i haven't master it
> yet...

> Now my movie/slide show program ulead vs9, ... i can do that i can
> bring various animation (gif or flash) and special efffects on top
> (overlays) of my various frames at different time, then export to a
> mulitmedia format like mpg or avi , etc...
>
> but i am thinking that flash is maybe your best choice...

I wish I had either one. I think I will finish this project using
Excel so I can put it behind me and move on, then install Power Point
to see what I have.

Thanks,
Ron

Nicholas Sherlock

2007-02-14, 3:14 am

ronviers@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> On Feb 13, 9:04 am, JJ <j...@nowhere.net> wrote:
>
>
> Hi JJ,
> Thanks for the info. Flash looks expensive though. Do you think I
> could get an old version from Ebay that would work just as well? If so
> how far back in version could I safely go back so it would still have
> a PC version and do the timeline stuff?
> I am going to have to look in to Javascript. I do not know what it is.
> Are you saying that it could do the timelines too, rather than Flash?

If you can't afford Flash, check out SWiSH:

http://www.swishzone.com/index.php?...cts&product=max

It used to be free, but now I see it is $99.

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

--
http://www.sherlocksoftware.org

Andrew Morton

2007-02-14, 6:14 am

ronviers@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> On Feb 13, 7:26 pm, jerryb <n...@000.com> wrote:
>
> Power Point? I have that! I have never installed it, or even opened a
> Power Point document. I will look into it. Micro$ucks may just ship a
> viewer with Office so I may not have what you are talking about but I
> will keep my fingers crossed.

I don't know if PP can export swf files, but the Presentation prog in
OpenOffice.org (free) can. As to how easy it would be to actually create
your animation, well, that's a different matter...

Is this for something to be presented on a web page?

Andrew

ronviers@gmail.com

2007-02-15, 6:14 am

On Feb 14, 3:11 am, "Andrew Morton"
>
> Andrew

I thought so at first but now I find that the web imposes so many
constraints that I'm not sure. The web is primarily utilitarian, which
is not why I got in to graphics. One thing is certain, the graphics I
have fantasies about doing are not suited for today's internet.